16 September 2024

Putin's real intentions

Percy Allan, like all commentators, has read Vladimir's Putin’s intentions in Ukraine wrong. NATO’s eastward expansion was a useful pretext because it draws attention to American lies about NATO expansion. But, given the expansion already undertaken — eg Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — that buffer had already been lost. Putin’s nostalgic musing about Russia’s former glory fed into the deception that he wants Ukraine. America’s coup and breaches of the Minsk agreements, causing the deaths of around 14,000 in ethnically Russian eastern Ukraine, adds to the pretext for war. At the start of the conflict, Russia made a...